Ability 3D promises to let hobbyists print with metal

LAS VEGAS — Printing metal has
been one of the holy grails of 3D printing. For the most part, printed
prototype parts are made of plastic or other soft materials. That
greatly limits their use in many production applications. Unless you
pony up for a bank-vault-sized unit that can print metal and costs a few
hundred thousand dollars, you wind up with parts that may be useful for low-stress situations.

For production, or for high-stress or
high-temperature situations, like engines, you needed to resort to
traditional means of fabrication — usually machining. Ability 3D is
hoping to change that, with a $3,000 unit that can fit on a workbench
and can use a variety of metal.

Combination welder and machine tool

Cleverly, Ability’s printer uses a MIG welder
to heat and extrude the metal substrate. Technically, the company says
it can potentially work with any form of metal that can be welded, but
for now they are focused on steel, aluminum, and stainless steel. In
each case, the printer is fed from spools of the appropriate welding
wire.

Like most metal printing solutions, to get
smooth surfaces the extrusion unit needs to be coupled with a machine
tool that can route out holes as needed, and finish off surfaces. You
can see in the video below how the router is used in conjunction with
the welder. The printer can create items up to 8-inches on a side —
although anything that large will take quite a bit of time.

February cylinder test will reveal a lot

In February, Ability 3D plans to print an
engine cylinder and install it in a working engine. If it can do that
without having to do a lot of work on the part after it’s printed,
that’ll be a huge milestone. I’m a little skeptical so far, as the
company only had one small part to show here at CES, and it wasn’t
anything fancy. However, if they can pull it off they’ll definitely open
a new chapter in what’s possible for small businesses and high-end
hobbyists. It’s not likely to put a dent in high-volume manufacturing,
though, as the company estimates that the cylinder will take between 10
and 20 hours to print.

Home 3D printing got some bad press after the
poor performance of much-hyped MakerBot. But for those willing to take
some initiative, there are numerous affordable solutions suitable for at
least prototyping. We covered a few of them in our 3D printer roundup from last year’s CES, and we’ll cover more in our roundup this year.

While Ability 3D has set a target price of
$3,000, timing is dependent on the success of its Kickstarter project,
which is launching in March. It sounds like there are still plenty of
challenges left. But the promise of affordable 3D printing in metal
makes it worth watching closely.